


129 Woodbine Lane

by Jmeelee



Series: SterekBingo 2019 [5]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Ghosts, M/M, Sterek Bingo 2019, Urban Legends, sblegends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-03-08 14:12:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18896227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jmeelee/pseuds/Jmeelee
Summary: It’s raining proverbial cats and dogs, drumming droplets pounding off the hood and bounding onto the windshield.   The slick asphalt is a bitch on the Camaro’s rear-wheel-drive, so Derek’s taking it extra slow, easing down the winding road, avoiding pock-marks in the blacktop overflowing with muddy water.  The wind howls louder as the barometer drops, an oppressive curtain of white noise and black clouds blotting out the sun, so he doesn’t notice her until she’s standing ten feet from the fender.





	129 Woodbine Lane

It’s raining proverbial cats and dogs, drumming droplets pounding off the hood and bounding onto the windshield.   The slick asphalt is a bitch on the Camaro’s rear-wheel-drive, so Derek’s taking it extra slow, easing down the winding road, avoiding pock-marks in the blacktop overflowing with muddy water.  The wind howls louder as the barometer drops, an oppressive curtain of white noise and black clouds blotting out the sun, so he doesn’t notice her until she’s standing ten feet from the fender. 

 

He slams on the brakes, back end of the car fishtailing as his stomach somersaults toward his toes.  Derek white-knuckles the steering wheel, turning into the spin and praying he doesn't side-swipe her.  She’s trudging through the whitewater rapids gushing along the side of the road, soaked flannel shirt and faded blue jeans clinging to her tall, slim body.  As the car skids to a halt, she turns to look, staring through the rivulets running down curved glass into his wide green eyes.

 

The first thought to permeate his skittish, panicked brain is that she’s plain—face pale and narrow, ropes of dark hair plastered to her cheeks, brown eyes—but he blinks and the misty steam rising from the hot pavement dissipates enough for him to realize she’s anything but simple.  The eyes he thought dull sparkle with mirth, despite her dire circumstances and brush with injury, and tiny laugh lines crease the corners, divulging her age. There’s a single dimple gracing the side of her generous smile when she waves at him, small hands tipped with long, slender fingers.   

 

Derek’s never picked up a hitchhiker, but his index finger is a magnet, drawn to the power lock button on the driver door.  The click of the releasing lock is a gunshot through nature’s battle raging outside the Camaro. She rushes to the passenger door, pulling it open and sliding every dripping inch of herself onto the leather seat.  Too late Derek remembers the musty, moth-eaten blanket stashed in the trunk that could have saved his upholstery. 

 

She blinks water from her eyes, spindly dark-brown lashes stained black from the moisture.  The sweet smell of petrichor follows her in, and Derek takes a cleansing breath. “Thank you,” she gushes. “You’re a sweetheart for getting me out of this storm! I appreciate your help.”  Derek’s awful at estimating people’s ages, but now that he’s seen her up close, he guesses she’s in her late-thirties or early-forties. 

 

Treetops sway ominously in the saturating squall.  “No one should be out in this monsoon. Sucks you got caught in it.”  He turns back to her and raises his right hand. “I’m Derek, by the way.  Nice to meet you. And don’t worry, I’m not a serial killer picking up unsuspecting women from the side of the road.”

 

Her chuckle fills up all the empty spaces.  “I wasn’t worried. My name is Claudia,” she says, lightly grasping his outstretched palm.  Her clammy, ice-cold skin is a shock to his system, causing a wave of goosebumps to break out over his limbs.  

 

“Jesus, you’re freezing.  Here let me—” Derek spins the air dial from blue to red, and shrugs out of his black leather jacket, handing it to her.  “Put this on. I’ve had the air-conditioner blasting, and I doubt the heat will do much good while you’re soaked to the bone.”

 

Claudia slides her arms into the jacket sleeves, shivering at the residual warmth from his skin. “Thank you, Derek. I didn’t realize how cold I’d gotten.”

 

A bead of water trickles down her temple.  “What were you doing way out here in the preserve?”  Derek doesn’t recognize her, but that’s not surprising.  He’s only been back in town a few weeks. She’s probably a hiker.  No one lives out here anymore, not since his own family’s house burnt down seven years ago.  He’d been out at the site of the wreckage, unsuccessfully drafting a blueprint to rebuild and wondering if he should bother staying in Beacon Hills at all, when fat gray clouds had rolled in.  The first splatters on the blue-line Diazo paper looked like teardrops and felt like an omen.

 

Deep-set eyes, the same color as the cognac his father swirled in a tumbler every Sunday after Family dinner, slip closed as she burrows into the borrowed coat.  “I’m trying to get home to my family, to my little boy.” She laughs. “Though, he’d be madder than hell to hear me refer to him as  _ little _ nowadays.”  She lolls against the seat, rolling her head to face him and cracking open her eyes.  “You’re too young to have children, but you will, one day. And when you have a child of your own, you’ll understand.” Her smile is soft, faded at the edges like a memory.  “No matter how tall they get, how old, they’ll always be your baby.” 

 

Normally Derek hates this kind of condescension from the generation before him; their know-it-all attitude about what kind of future he should and will have chafing against his skin.  His knee-jerk response of, “ _ I’m not even sure I want to have kids _ ,” is on the tip of his tongue, but she’s not trying to patronize. Everything about her screams  _ mother _ , in that same instinctual way his own mother used to, before she died.  And he knows all too well what it’s like to close your eyes and see ghosts from a bygone era; every iteration of his own family—sisters, parents, uncles, cousins—burned onto the backs of his eyelids.  “Where to?” He asks instead.

 

Claudia reaches for her seatbelt and buckles herself in.  “I live at 129 Woodbine Lane.”

 

Small talk flows as they navigate through the preserve, and the trees slowly thin out to the suburbs.  Claudia tells Derek she grew up in Beacon Hills, went to Beacon Hills High, and married her high school sweetheart, Noah.  Derek’s not one for sharing, but he finds the words flowing out of his mouth with ease. He tells her about the fire, his desire to put down roots, his crazy idea that maybe Beacon Hills is the place for them to grow.  For a few minutes the torrential downpour subsides, but as they pull into Claudia’s neighborhood the heavens open once more, lightning cracking across the sky. Derek rolls the car to a stop at the corner.

 

“I’m glad we met, Derek.  Thank you again for bringing me home.”  

 

He leans forward, squinting through the downpour at the reflective green street sign.  “It’s the least I can do. Besides, only a jerk would drive past someone in this storm.  And I’m sorry but you’re going to have to direct me from here because it’s coming down so hard I can’t tell if that says Woodbine La—” 

 

He stops talking when he turns to her for affirmation, and finds the passenger seat empty.  “What the…?” Derek jerks his head over his shoulder, glancing into the back seat, but it’s empty too.  “Claudia?” His heart crawls into his throat, strangling her name.

 

The rain is so thick he can’t see down the road, but the Camaro doors are heavy and he’s positive she didn’t get out; he’d have heard the slam.

 

Easing off the brake into first gear, Derek creeps down the block until he’s parked, engine idling in front of number one-twenty-nine, a white colonial with black shutters, sheets of rain cascading from the bloated gutters.  The picture window glows with a warm, inviting light, and the front door is painted a vibrant red. The view in his rear view mirror is damp and dismal, no human in sight. He throws open the door and dashes for the porch.

 

The doorbell chimes a melodic tune and within moments, the red door swings open to reveal a lanky young man, about Derek’s age, with a pale, welcoming face decorated in moles.  Wide, inquisitive eyes scan Derek head to toe. “Hey, man. Can I help you?”

 

“Yes, is this… this is 129 Woodbine Lane, correct?”  He  _ looks _ like Claudia.  Artfully-messy hair a shade lighter, but the dimples and earthy doe-eyes are the same.  The long, slim fingers gripping the door are the same as well, despite chewed fingernails and the muscular hand they’re attached to.  So, obviously not the husband, and too old to be her son. A younger brother, perhaps?

 

The man nods.  “Yup. Welcome to Casa de Stilinski.  I’m Stiles. What brings you to our humble abode in the middle of a hurricane?”

 

Derek cranes his neck to peer through the dining room into the attached kitchen. The house is winsomely chaotic: dirty dishes stacked on the kitchen counter next to the sink, sweatshirts thrown over dining room chair backs, dusty, broken candles in tarnished pewter candleholders.   “Claudia did. Is she… did she make it home? She just disappeared from my—”

 

Stiles’ face, so invitingly open seconds ago, shutters closed.  “That’s not fucking funny, dude. Tell me what you really want, and get off my porch.”

 

“What?”  Stiles’ mood swing gives Derek whiplash.  “No. Claudia, is she your sister? She was out in the preserve and I gave her a ride home but when we got to the corner—”

 

“She’s my mother,” Stiles interrupts, moving to slam the door in Derek’s face, “and she’s dead.”

 

_ Not so little nowadays. _

 

Derek wedges his boot against the door jamb, preventing Stiles from closing it.  “That’s impossible.”

 

Stiles glares at him.  “Who the hell  _ are  _ you?  Did my father arrest you and you’re here for some kind of sick revenge?”

 

_ Stilinski _ ?  Derek vaguely remembers a deputy by that name, who’d lovingly placed a blanket— the same blanket currently in his trunk—around his shoulders as his childhood home turned to ash.  “My name is Derek Hale and I live...well, I  _ used _ to live out in the preserve.  I moved away after a fire killed my family, but I’m back.”  He takes a deep breath. “At least, for now. I was at the remains of the old house, seeing if the land could be salvaged, and when the storm came up, I decided to head back to the apartment I’m leasing in town.  But there was a woman on the side of the road. I pulled over to help.”

 

As Derek describes her, the door edges open in increments, until Stiles is grabbing Derek’s damp Henley and pulling him through the doorway.  “You stay here. Just don’t move, okay? Don’t move,” he commands. He leaves Derek dripping onto the tile in the foyer and sprints from the room, only to return two seconds later, a whirlwind of sprawling limbs. 

 

“Don’t— I thought you… okay.”  Derek shakes his head when Stiles once again vanishes from sight.  What a handsome weirdo.

 

He reappears a few minutes later, bearing a dusty, leather-bound photo album.  The spine cracks in protest as he opens it, hands it to Derek. “Point her out to me.”

 

There she is, on page two: holding the hand of a little boy wearing a Batman t-shirt, eating chocolate ice cream at the fair, cradling her pregnant belly in front of a Christmas tree.  “That’s her,” Derek whispers, tracing a damp fingertip over the clear plastic sleeve protecting the photos. “Stiles, I swear, she was in my car twenty minutes ago.”

 

“She’s been dead for fifteen years.”  Stiles closes the album. “Frontotemporal dementia, when she was thirty-seven.  It’s been just my father and I since she passed away.”

 

Derek takes the album from Stiles hands, places it softly on the dining room table.  “She told me she wanted to get home to her little boy.”

 

A quick intake of breath.  “I’m not so little anymore.”

 

Derek smiles.  “Yeah. I think she knows.”

 

Stiles rubs at the back of his neck.  “Do you… I could get you some dry clothes.  You could stay awhile.” And Derek sees Claudia again, peeking out from Stiles’ hopeful, flustered shyness.

 

“My car’s still running out front,” Derek says, and Stiles’ face falls.  

 

The fidgety hand drops back to his side, fist clenched. “Oh, yeah, of course.  No prob—”

 

“But I could come right back in,” Derek offers.  “I’d like to hear more about your mom.”

  
  


*****

 

They meet at the cemetery gate the following morning, and Stiles walks him along a zigzagged path past the duck pond and the statue of Saint Anthony, toward the back right corner of the graveyard.  Yesterday’s rain has given way to a gloriously sunny day, satiated flowers reaching toward the warm rays. There, under a large weeping willow, is Claudia’s grave, an angel carved on the marble face of the marker.  

 

“It’s not that I didn’t believe you before, Derek, but  _ this _ ...” Stiles’ words trail off at the sight before them.

 

Hanging off the top left corner of the headstone is Derek’s black leather jacket.  

 

Stiles turns toward him, brow adorably scrunched.  “Why did she choose to come through now?”

 

Derek shrugs.  “I think she wants you to know she loves you, no matter how much time passes.”

 

Stiles steps forward, grabs the jacket and ghosts his fingertips softly over the marble, a silent greeting.  “Not that I’m not grateful, but why’d she pick  _ you,  _ Derek?  ”

 

Derek thinks about how heavy his heart was when he rushed to his car to avoid the rain.  How the tragedy in his rear view mirror seemed impossible to overcome. How he thought he'd never find a place where he belonged.

 

“Claudia needed a way to get home.  I didn’t realize it at first, but so did I.”

 

Stiles holds out the jacket.  “Did you find it?”

 

And when Derek looks at Stiles, the future doesn’t seem as lonely and unattainable as it did yesterday.  

 

He accepts the jacket from Stiles’ outstretched hand.  “Yeah,” Derek says. “I think I did.”

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> This story is based on the urban legend, The Vanishing Hitchhiker. I'm Jamie! Thanks for reading.


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